IR201 INTRODUCTION TO
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
COLD WAR
WHAT IS THE COLD WAR?
• The Cold War was a period of economic, political and military tension between the United
States and Soviet Union from 1945 to 1991.
• Following the end of the Second World War, complications arose centering on the shifting of
international power.
• The Soviet Union wanted to acquire additional territory while the United States attempted to
limit the gains desired by the Soviets.
• This battle of ideologies resulted in increased national security, diplomatic tension and proxy
wars between the two powerful nations.
PROXY WARS
• A war in which a war is fought between two or more entities, one or more of whom is
supported by another country, in order to achieve the goals of the supporting country.
• Proxy wars were common in the Cold War, because the two nuclear-armed superpowers (the
Soviet Union and the United States, and to some extent, China) did not wish to fight each
other directly, since that would have run the risk of escalation to a nuclear war
COLD WAR PROXY WARS
• Korean war 1950-1953
• Vıetnam war 1954-1975
• Cuban war 1961-1962
• Soviet occupation of Afghanistan 1978-1992
• Angola civil war 1976-1988
THE COLD WAR
• The Cold War lasted about 45 years. There were no direct military campaigns between the two main
antagonists, the United States and the Soviet Union. Yet billions of dollars and millions of lives were lost
in the fight.
• The United States became the leader of the free-market capitalist world. America and its allies struggled
to keep the communist, totalitarian Soviet Union from expanding into Europe, Asia, and Africa.
• Theaters as remote as Korea and Vietnam, Cuba and Grenada, Afghanistan and Angola, became
battlegrounds between the two ideologies.
• One postwar pattern quickly became clear. The United States would not retreat into its former
isolationist stance as long as there was a Cold War to wage.
SOME OF THE MAIN CAUSES
• The long-term causes of the Cold War are clear. Western democracies had always been
hostile to the idea of a communist state.
• The United States had refused recognition to the USSR for 16 years after the Bolshevik
takeover. Domestic fears of communism erupted in a RED SCARE in America in the early
Twenties. American business leaders had long feared the consequences of a politically driven
workers' organization.
• There was hostility on the Soviet side as well. Twenty million Russian citizens perished during
World War II.
• Stalin was enraged that the Americans and British had waited so long to open a front in
France.
• This would have relieved pressure on the Soviet Union from the attacking Germans. Further,
The United States terminated Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union before the war was
complete.
• Finally, the Soviet Union believed in communism.
LEND-LEASE AID
• This was a program under which the United States supplied Free France, United Kingdom, the Republic
of China, and later the USSR and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and
August 1945.
• This included warships and warplanes, along with other weaponry. It was signed into law on March 11,
1941 and ended in September 1945. In general the aid was free, although some hardware (such as
ships) were returned after the war. In return, the U.S. was given leases on army and naval bases in Allied
territory during the war.
GENESIS OF THE COLD WAR
• The beginning of the Cold War is linked to the Potsdam Conference in the summer of 1945.
• The intention of the meeting was to discuss the realignment of post-war Europe.
• However, discussions broke down into threats. The United States and Soviet Union agreed upon the
division of Berlin, but the Soviets, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, wanted to acquire Poland as a
buffer against future attacks.
• President Harry Truman rejected Stalin's demands, citing the right of self-determination in the case of
Poland.
• Truman then revealed his master card: the atomic bomb. Upon learning of the destructive weapon,
Stalin ordered a crash program to commence in order to speed arms development and counter the
atomic bomb.
MISTRUSTS
• Stalin made promises during the war about the freedom of eastern Europe on which he blatantly
reneged.
• At the YALTA CONFERENCE, the USSR pledged to enter the war against Japan no later than three
months after the conclusion of the European war.
• In return, the United States awarded the Soviets territorial concessions from Japan and special rights in
Chinese Manchuria.
• When the Soviet Union entered the war between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United
States no longer needed their aid, but Stalin was there to collect on Western promises. All these factors
contributed to a climate of mistrust that heightened tensions at the outbreak of the Cold War.
THE BEGINNING OF COLD WAR
• At Potsdam, the Allies agreed on the postwar outcome for Nazi Germany. After territorial adjustments,
Germany was divided into four OCCUPATION ZONES with the United States, Great Britain, France, and
the Soviet Union each administering one.
• Germany was to be democratized and de-Nazified. Once the Nazi leaders were arrested and war crimes
trials began, a date would be agreed upon for the election of a new German government and the
withdrawal of Allied troops.
• This process was executed in the zones held by the western Allies. In the eastern Soviet occupation
zone, a puppet communist regime was elected. There was no promise of repatriation with the west.
Soon such governments, aided by the Soviet Red Army came to power all across eastern Europe. Stalin
was determined to create a buffer zone to prevent any future invasion of the Russian heartland.
• Winston Churchill remarked in 1946 that an "iron curtain had descended across the continent."
UNITED NATIONS
• The Allies had won the war, but would they be able to keep the peace?
• An examination of the period between WWI and WWII showed a lack of commitment to the
spirit of internationalism. The old League of Nations proved too weak in structure to fill this
void. Perhaps a stronger international body, as envisioned by Woodrow Wilson, was
necessary to keep the world powers from tearing each other apart. It was in this spirit that
Franklin Roosevelt championed the creation of a United Nations.
• The BIG THREE of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin had devoted hours of dialogue to the
nature of a United Nations. After agreeing on the general principles at the DUMBARTON
OAKS and Yalta Conferences, delegates from around the world met in San Francisco to write a
charter.
• Despite considerable enmity and conflicts of interest among the attending nations, a charter
was ultimately approved by unanimous consent.
UNITED NATIONS
• Despite the ideological animosity spawned by the Cold War, a new spirit of globalism was born after
WWII.
• It was based, in part, on the widespread recognition of the failures of isolationism. The incarnation of
this global sprit came to life with the establishment of the United Nations in 1945 with its headquarters
in New York City.
• How does the UN work?
• The UN charter called for the establishment of a Security Council, or "upper house." The SECURITY
COUNCIL serves as the executive branch of the United Nations. The Security Council must authorize any
actions, such as economic sanctions, the use of force, or the deployment of peacekeeping troops.
UNITED NATIONS
• Each of the "GREAT POWERS" — the United States, Great Britain, France, China, and the Soviet Union
— holds a permanent seat on the Security Council.
• The remaining ten seats are elected to two-year terms by the General Assembly. Each permanent
member holds the power of veto.
• No action can go forth if any one of the five objects. As the Cold War crystallized, the countervailing
veto powers of the United States and the Soviet Union served often to inhibit the Security Council from
taking any forceful or meaningful action.
• The main body of the United Nations is called the GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Every member nation holds a
seat in the General Assembly, which is often described as a town meeting for the world. The General
Assembly has standing committees to address ongoing issues such as economics and finance, social,
cultural and humanitarian concerns, and legal problems. The General Assembly passes resolutions and
has the power to make recommendations to the Security Council, but has no power to require any
action. In addition to the General Assembly, and ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL has committees
designed to address a wide array of topics from the STATUS OF WOMEN to the ENVIRONMENT.
UNITED NATIONS
•
TRUSTEESHIP COUNCIL was designed to oversee the transition of states from colonies to
independent nations.
• The Secretariat manages the day-to-day operations of the United Nations. An
INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE was also created.
• The UN can point to many solid accomplishments. Among them: sending peacekeepers to
war-stricken areas, making recommendations on how to raise literacy and health rates in the
Third World, and even authorizing the use of force against aggressor nations.
• In 1945 as well as today the UN gives cause for believe that nations can get along together. In
a world with conflicting histories, agendas, and political posturing, one international group —
the United Nations — remains above the day-to-day fray.
• When the Cold War ended in the 1990s, many citizens around the globe once again looked to
the United Nations with renewed hope of building a safer, stronger planet.
CONTAINTMENT AND THE MARSHALL PLAN
• When the RED ARMY marched on Germany, it quickly absorbed the nearby nations ESTONIA,
LATVIA, AND LITHUANIA into the Soviet Union. Soon communist forces dominated the
governments of ROMANIA and BULGARIA.
• By the fall of 1945, it was clear that the Soviet had complete control of Poland, violating the
Yalta promise of free and unfettered elections there. It was only a matter of time before
Hungary and Czechoslovakia fell into the Soviet sphere of influence. Yugoslavia had an
independent communist leader named TITO.
• And now Stalin was ordering the creation of a communist PUPPET REGIME in the Soviet
sector of occupied Germany. How many dominoes would fall? United States diplomats saw a
continent ravaged by war looking for strong leadership and aid of any sort, providing a
climate ripe for revolution.
• Would the Soviets get all of Germany? Or Italy and France? President Truman was
determined to reverse this trend.
CONTAINTMENT AND THE MARSHALL PLAN
• Greece and Turkey were the first nations spiraling into crisis that had not been directly
occupied by the Soviet Army.
• Both countries were on the verge of being taken over by Soviet-backed guerrilla movements.
• Truman decided to draw a line in the sand. In March 1947, he asked Congress to appropriate
$400 million to send to these two nations in the form of military and economic assistance.
Within two years the communist threat had passed, and both nations were comfortably in
the western sphere of influence.
• A mid-level diplomat in the State Department named GEORGE KENNAN proposed the POLICY
OF CONTAINMENT. Since the American people were weary from war and had no desire to
send United States troops into Eastern Europe, rolling back the gains of the Red Army would
have been impossible.
TRUMAN DOCTRINE AND MARSHALL PLAN
• But in places where communism threatened to expand, American aid might prevent a
takeover.
• By vigorously pursuing this policy, the United States might be able to contain communism
within its current borders. The policy became known as the TRUMAN DOCTRINE, as the
President outlined these intentions with his request for monetary aid for Greece and Turkey.
• In the aftermath of WWII, Western Europe lay devastated. The war had ruined crop fields and
destroyed infrastructure, leaving most of Europe in dire need. On June 5, 1947, Secretary of
State GEORGE MARSHALL announced the European Recovery Program.
• To avoid antagonizing the Soviet Union, Marshall announced that the purpose of sending aid
to Western Europe was completely humanitarian.
• Congress approved Truman's request of $17 billion over four years to be sent to Great Britain,
France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium.
MARSHALL PLAN
• The MARSHALL PLAN created an economic miracle in Western Europe. By the target date of
the program four years later, Western European industries were producing twice as much as
they had been the year before war broke out.
• Some Americans grumbled about the costs, but the nation spent more on liquor during the
years of the Marshall Plan than they sent overseas to Europe. The aid also produced record
levels of trade with American firms, fueling a postwar economic boom in the United States.
• Lastly and much to Truman's delight, none of these nations of western Europe faced a serious
threat of communist takeover for the duration of the Cold War.
THE BERLIN AIRLIFT AND NATO
• BERLIN, Germany's wartime capital was the prickliest of all issues that separated the United
States and Soviet Union during the late 1940s.
• The city was divided into four ZONES OF OCCUPATION like the rest of Germany. However, the
entire city lay within the Soviet zone of occupation. Once the nation of EAST GERMANY was
established, the Allied sections of the capital known as West Berlin became an island of
democracy and capitalism behind the IRON CURTAIN.
• In June 1948, tensions within Berlin touched off a crisis.
• The Soviets decided to seal all land routes going into West Berlin. Stalin gambled that the
Western powers were not willing to risk another war to protect half of Berlin. The Allies were
tired, and their populations were unlikely to support a new war. A withdrawal by the United
States would eliminate this democratic enclave in the Soviet zone.
THE BERLIN AIRLIFT AND NATO
• Truman was faced with tough choices. Relinquishing Berlin to the Soviets would seriously undermine
the new doctrine of containment. Any negotiated settlement would suggest that the USSR could
engineer a crisis at any time to exact concessions. If Berlin were compromised, the whole of West
Germany might question the American commitment to German democracy. To Harry Truman, there was
no question. "We are going to stay, period, " he declared. Together, with Britain, the United States
began moving massive amounts of food and supplies into West Berlin by the only path still open — the
air.
• The USSR had to now choose between war and peace. He refused to give the order to shoot down the
American planes. Over the next eleven months, British and American planes flew over 4000 tons of
supplies daily into West Berlin. As the American public cheered "OPERATION VITTLES," Stalin began to
look bad in the eyes of the world. He was clearly willing to use innocent civilians as pawns to quench his
expansionist thirst. In May 1949, the Soviets ended the blockade. The United States and Britain had
flown over 250,000-supply missions.
THE BERLIN AIRLIFT AND NATO
• Stalin miscalculated when he estimated the strength of western unity.
• To cement the cooperation that the western allies had shown during the war and immediate
postwar years, the NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION was created in April 1949. The
pact operated on the basis of collective security.
• If any one of the member states were attacked, all would retaliate together. The original
NATO included Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Luxembourg,
Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and the United States.
• The United States formally shed its ISOLATIONIST past and thrust itself forward as a
determined superpower fighting its new rival.
NATO: NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION
•
In 1949 the western nations formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to co- ordinate their defense against USSR.
•It originally consisted of:
•America
•Belgium
•Britain
•Canada
•Denmark
•France
•Holland
•Italy
•Luxembourg
•Norway
•Portugal
• Since the fall of the Soviet Union in
1991,some former Soviet republics have applied for membership to NATO.
WARSAW PACT
•Warsaw Pact: organization of communist states in Central and
•Established May 14, 1955 in Warsaw, Poland
•USSR established in in response to NATO treaty
•Founding members:
•Albania (left in 1961 as a result of the Sino-Soviet split)
•Bulgaria
•Czechoslovakia
•Hungary
•Poland
•Romania
• USSR
•East Germany (1956)
Eastern Europe.
CONTAINMENT IN ASIA
• Containment had not gone so well in Asia.
• When the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan, they sent troops into Japanese-occupied Korea.
As American troops established a presence in the southern part of the Korean peninsula, the Soviets
began cutting roads and communications. Two separate governments were emerging, as Korea began
to resemble the divided Germany.
• Upon the recommendation of the UN, elections were scheduled, but the North refused to participate.
The South elected SYNGMAN RHEE as president, but the Soviet-backed North was ruled by KIM IL
SUNG. When the United States withdrew its forces from the peninsula, trouble began.
• Northern Korean armed forces crossed the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950. It took only two days for
President Truman to commit the United States military to the defense of southern Korea. Truman hoped
to build a broad coalition against the aggressors from the North by enlisting support from the United
Nations.
KOREAN WAR
• Of course, the Soviet Union could veto any proposed action by the Security Council, but this time, the
Americans were in luck. The Soviets were boycotting the Security Council for refusing to admit RED
CHINA into the United Nations.
• As a result, the Council voted unanimously to "repel the armed attack" of North Korea. Many countries
sent troops to defend the South, but forces beyond those of the United States and South Korea were
nominal.
• The commander of the UN forces was none other than Douglas MacArthur. He had an uphill battle to
fight, as the North had overrun the entire peninsula with the exception of the small PUSAN
PERIMETER in the South. MacArthur ordered an amphibious assault at Inchon on the western side of
the peninsula on September 15.
KOREAN WAR
• Caught by surprise, the communist-backed northern forces reeled in retreat. American led-forces
from INCHON and the Pusan Perimeter quickly pushed the northern troops to the 38th Parallel — and
kept going.
• The United States saw an opportunity to create a complete indivisible democratic Korea and pushed the
northern army up to the Yalu River, which borders China.
• With anticommunism on the rise at home, Truman relished the idea of reuniting Korea. His hopes were
dashed on November 27, when over 400,000 Chinese soldiers flooded across the YALU RIVER. In 1949,
Mao Tse-tung had established a communist dictatorship in China, the world's most populous nation.
The Chinese now sought to aide the communists in northern Korea.
KOREAN WAR
• In no time, American troops were once again forced below the 38th Parallel. General
MacArthur wanted to escalate the war. He sought to bomb the Chinese mainland and
blockade their coast.
• Truman disagreed. He feared escalation of the conflict could lead to World War III, especially
if the now nuclear-armed Soviet Union lent assistance to China. Disgruntled, MacArthur took
his case directly to the American people by openly criticizing Truman's approach. Truman
promptly fired him for insubordination.
• Meanwhile, the war evolved into a stalemate, with the front line corresponding more or less
to the 38th Parallel. Ceasefire negotiations dragged on for two more years, beyond Truman's
Presidency.
• Finally, on July 27, 1953, an armistice was signed at PANMUNJOM. North Korea remained a
communist dictatorship, and South Korea remained under the control of Syngman Rhee, a
military strong man. Over 53,000 Americans were killed in the conflict.
ARMS RACE
• Cold War tensions increased in the US when the USSR exploded its first atomic bomb in
1949.
• Cold War tensions increased in the USSR when the US exploded its first hydrogen bomb in
1952. The United States detonates the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen
bomb, on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. The test gave the United States a short-lived
advantage in the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. Following the successful Soviet
detonation of an atomic device in September 1949, the United States accelerated its
program to develop the next stage in atomic weaponry, a thermonuclear bomb. Popularly
known as the hydrogen bomb, this new weapon was approximately 1,000 times more
powerful than conventional nuclear devices.
SPACE RACE
• Cold War tensions increased in the US when the USSR launched Sputnik I, the first artificial
satellite into geocentric orbit on October 4, 1957.
– The race to control space was on
• April 12, 1961: Yuri Gagarin became first human in space and first to orbit Earth.
• US felt a loss of prestige and increased funding for space programs and science education.
• On May 25,1961, Kennedy gave a speech challenging America to land a man on the moon and return him
safely by the end of the decade.
• Apollo 11 landed on the moon on July 16, 1969.
COLD WAR PROPAGANDA
• Cold War propaganda was widely used in all major nations, in an attempt to gain and consolidate public
support.
• Early forms of propaganda contained explicit political messages and themes and lacked any subtlety.
• In time the messages of Cold War propaganda were integrated into popular culture, such as film, books
and television.
• In America, Cold War propaganda celebrated the prosperity of capitalism, while reinforcing conservative
social values. 5. Cold War culture was also keenly focused on the continued activities of spies and secret
agents, who were well represented in film, television and literature.